Military airport, the Chinese "runway" appears

Silence is ghostly. The horizon, towards the murky and agitated waters of Santa Gilla, is broken only by a wall of barbed wire, as much as a lager from the past. The balustrades that separate the water mirror from the citadel of the air, close to the civil airport of Cagliari, fall into dust, corroded by time and neglect. The glorious officers' circle, memory of glories and refreshments, is no longer available to the graduates, now the birds of the pond share it. Here everything was once forbidden: to enter, to photograph, to stick one's nose beyond that war fence. The signs signaled the prohibitions as if, beyond those hope-green cylinders, placed like columns of Hercules at the entrance to the military airport of Cagliari, there was no tomorrow. Just reading them was intimidating, let alone challenging them. Even today everything is forbidden, but there is not a single armed soldier to prevent access to what was once one of the most prestigious air force bases in the land of Sardinia.

Sealed by time

To block the entrance there is only a padlock, attacked by rust and sealed by time. There has been no one in here for four years. As if peace had decided to erase history. Yet this appendix in the Gulf of Angels has marked the history not only of aviation in the Nuraghi Island, but also those of the great crossings, from the admirable feats of the commander Francesco De Pinedo, who departed from here for the "Cruise of the Americas ”, At the beginning of the seaplane connections, in 1927, between Cagliari and the Lido di Ostia, in Rome.

97 years ago

The history of this airport, first civil and then military and now nobody's son, begins 97 years ago with a royal decree written by King Vittorio Emanuele III of Savoy. It was January 22, 1925 when the Official Gazette nailed the “Declaration of public utility work for the establishment of a seaplane base near Elmas”. The King's act was peremptory: one year to complete the work. The expropriations of the areas, however, did not go smoothly and the structure was completed on 21 January 1928. The beginnings were not modest: the first nucleus was such as to impose the establishment of the Sardinia Aviation Command. The leap in category takes place, however, a few years later. It was 1933 when it was decided to equip the area with a real master plan, capable of planning the transformation of that immense area into a real city of the air. The strategic plan ends at the 1934 Milan Air Force Exhibition. A model celebrates the grandeur of time and power. The regime's architects and engineers impose the solutions of "Italian Rationalism" with "dynamic and curvilinear elements of a futurist imprint". Eventually, that building intervention will become an unprecedented masterpiece of military architecture: fifty buildings destined to mark urban and building history on the aerial shore of the flamingo pond. An area that still no one knows today, if not the insiders and those few who have been able to scrutinize it in some rare promotional incursion. In 2009, with a raid worthy of a state still stationary in the Kingdom of Italy, unaware of the Constitution and the Statute of the Autonomous Region of Sardinia, all that heritage passed from the Ministry of Defense to ENAC, the national civil aviation body .

State theft

The Sardinian region, as if it did not exist, is completely ignored. Article 14 of the Sardinian Statute, a norm of constitutional rank, yet, it is clear: all the assets of the State that cease their function automatically pass to the patrimony of the Region. For the Ministry of Defense, that provision is waste paper. The agreement, on the other hand, is signed by the Ministry of the military with Sogaer and Enac. With a joke: Sogaer must also pay what should have passed for free, and without subterfuge, directly to the Region which, then, could have entrusted those facilities to the same airport management company or proposed a different use of them. Enac and the Ministry of Defense require Sogaer to pay out, in exchange for the concession of those areas located on the opposite side of the civil terminal, the beauty of 9.5 million euros, with an outlay, already at the end of 2017, in works carried out at the service of the State, of 5.3 million euros. Not only does Sogaer pay for what it should have had for free, perhaps from the Region, but it is forced to bleed to death for a good that, from 2009 to today, has not earned a single euro, on the contrary. A completely non-returnable operation with the aggravation of a heritage that day after day, for 12 years, has been falling apart, without a single barrier to decay standing in the way of defeat. In reality, Sogaer, thinking of the burden of decay impending on that immense patrimony, tried to make sense of that "unconstitutional" operation by announcing an "exploratory notice" in March 2018, without providing for a minimum duration of concession and a minimum investment, for the acquisition of "expressions of interest for the sub-concession of spaces located within the airport grounds".

Irene & China

In practice, not only did the state function cease in that area, but also Sogaer, 9 years after that concession by Enac / Ministry of Defense, did not know what to do with it and proposed the assignment to third parties. After a year of extensions for the "call" of the Sogaer, seven show up, plus a latecomer. The challenge is apparently not between giants. In the jet set of the participants, however, well-known faces and oriental tracks appear. Crossing the door of the Cagliari port is the European Group of Economic Interest for the development of Eurasia and the Mediterranean. In art, Irene Maria Gioconda Pivetti, the former President of the Chamber of Deputies, a League member, always in line with China, up to the mask scandal in the Covid era. In the secret and armored reports of Sogaer it is written that she applied for the management of the citadel of the air with a proposal of 20 July 2018, but, adds the report of the expression of interest, no one has ever come to illustrate the Chinese landing project in the lagoon.

Chinese thread

The proposal to group Eas, acronym for European Air Solution, and EU Wings is openly pro-Chinese. At the head of the operation the controversial commander Vincenzo Soddu, former pilot of the Frecce tricolori and patron of the Volare company, which ended long ago in the vortex of bankruptcy, complete with heavy convictions. The proposal presented at Sogaer's top management is seasoned with the magic formula: we have the support of a Chinese financial group that would make an investment in the order of a few tens of millions of euros. In that former military enclave, Soddu proposes to do everything and more: maintenance, repair and overhaul of aircraft engines, flight training activities, starred restaurants and hotels. The newly established Scarponi company is also competing for the concession of the area, aiming to bring back the seaplanes and the Alpine and Speleological Rescue of Sardinia to the area.

Aerospace District

The most organic proposal, and in many ways credible, however, is being advanced by the Aerospace District of Sardinia. There are three lines of offer: congress center and high-end accommodation facilities, structures with museum and recreational purposes, university structure and campus. Nothing will be done about it. Out of the blue, it is November 5, 2019, the same Sogaer who had launched the expression of interest revokes the call: the proposals - they write - are not satisfactory. In reality, but no one says it, relaunching that area and using it at full capacity would create a massive traffic load on the entire airport security road network.

That too much traffic

And Enac had already denied the use of those roads for the connection with the Fas, the old ironworks of Sardinia, destined to become a large commercial center on the outskirts of Cagliari. This, however, is another story. The airport of seaplanes and great ocean crossings by Francesco De Pinedo is now a wasteland, with a glorious history that has no future.

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